Henryk Gorecki - Symphony No. 3

Hey! You!

Are you a stoner?

Do you truly and uniquely appreciate a "dank nug?" Do you love a pre-blaze snack? Are mangoes your favorite fruit? Is the "trees" sub-Reddit your home page?

Sure they are.

Do you love the stoner rock, or the stoner metal, as the kids say?

Sure you love it.

Now. Stay with me here--

Have you ever wished your chemical (and your musical genre) of choice has musical versions in ALL other genres?

Why, of course you have!

Hi there. I'm reviewer Horn McClure, star of such reviews as Blood on the Blackened Highway and The Lonesome Death of Larry Metalhead, and I'm here today to improv my way --though this hilariously, and don't you forget it, mister...!

--though your musical tastes...

...and my wallet!

Oh, stop me! I'm outta control. Outta control...!

So. Anyway.

I've got a question for you, you stoner bastard. Seriously, maybe take a shower or something. Jesus, find a stream-- water's free. Anyhoo--

Have you ever wished there was a stoner/ psychedelic version of classical ("European art") music? (Since everyone knows Wagner is the doom metal version, I mean.)

Why, of course you have!

So have I....

Got a deal...

For YOU!

Check you out one Poland's Henryk Górecki, and his Symphony No. 3, also known as the "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs," first released in 1976.

Been listening to this since 1994 (I read about it in Details magazine, you see). Back before the internet. And all that.

There's no consensus on what, if anything, the work is a response to....

Don't let the title or cover put you off-- though there is a distinct elegiac quality to these tunes (three movements to be precise, Opeth-y, huh?), they are distinctly harbingers of a burgeoning beauty, a very shy and reluctant hope, one rearing its head after a tragedy... like the shallow breaths, those barely able to register in the garden of one's senses, of one Thought Dead...

Part I, Lento—Sostenuto tranquillo ma cantabile, takes a good six minutes to even be completely audible, very gradually swelling and churning and rising... instrumental for nearly 13 minutes, little or no percussion and a floating tempo, nearly rubato in spots... as a single female voice voice, with just a piano under it, enters...

...and the music morphs like mercury on...

well--

Mercury.

Here's my suggestion:

Put whatever playback method you have on its maximum levels (I say this in complete, non-ironic seriousness):

most of the time, this bad boy will be  just below conversational levels;

but,

every now and then,

sometimes building, sometimes out of fucking nowhere--

he'll BLAST you at jet engine volume;

at yet, even in retrospect, this True Musical Dynamism doesn't seem forced, or even intentional-- just stylishly minimalist and appropriate. The appropriate note at the appropriate time-- a delicate and discreet, yet passionate, understanding of acoustics, and by extension, life.

Anyway, what I'm saying is, put your bubbler down for two Goddamn seconds and check it out.

--Horn